The Guidance and Supervision Council (COF) of the RN21 Integrated Project, the highest body of the consortium structure, met on February 28, at Espaço Inovação Mealhada, to address several issues within the scope of the management of the Integrated Project. CoLAB ForestWISE®, the leader of this aggregating consortium, hosted the meeting in which the first ordinary session of the Advisory Board also took place.
Opening the session was the Councilor of the Municipal Executive of Mealhada, Ricardo Santos, the Project Director, Rogério Rodrigues, and the CTO of CoLAB ForestWISE®, Carlos Fonseca, who reinforced the “importance of showing the good that is being done in this consortium that is essential to share with the partners who accompany us”.
This was followed by the presentation of more than 20 measures, which are part of the three pillars on which the RN21 Integrated Project is based, namely: the promotion of the production of national natural resin (pillar I); strengthening the sustainability of manufacturing (pillar II); and the positive differentiation of Natural Resin and derived products (pillar III).
The “Training and Professionalization of the Resin Worker” was one of the measures presented for Pillar I, which has as its main objective to develop an Academy capable of training resin extraction professionals.
For Pillar II, one of the measures presented was the “Transition to renewables and efficient use of water and energy”, which aims to prepare a study and Roadmap on best practices in the sustainable use of these resources, with a view to minimizing environmental impacts.
At this meeting, the status of the “Creation of a “seal” and the technical dissemination on the entire value chain”, inserted in pillar III, which arose from the need to affirm Natural Resin as a product of renewable origin, which can replace petroleum derivatives and become one of the successful examples of the Bioeconomy in Portugal. The first phase of brand creation began in the last half of 2023 and at the meeting some of the next steps under this initiative were presented.
To promote natural resin to consumers and business decision-makers, communication and marketing actions have been carried out with some already evident results, namely the podcast and the biannual publication of the magazine Resinae®.
Also at the meeting, the Interim Technical Monitoring Report of the RN21 | 2023, carried out by the Portuguese Environment Agency, which describes the progress achieved by the Integrated Project in terms of performance indicators – KPIs, and the work carried out in each of the measures defined in the project up to the reporting date. From the analysis carried out, it was concluded that the Project is proceeding as planned, taking into account the developments described for the 22 measures contained in the Project.
The meeting was attended by the members of the Advisory Board, composed of three external personalities of recognized merit and independent, which will meet annually to comment on the activities developed, propose corrective measures and promote partnerships. The Advisory Board includes Aida Rodrigues Garcia, currently coordinator of several projects related to non-wood forest products; Álvaro Picardo, Technical Coordinator of the SMURF Horizont Europe project, on “Sustainable Management Models and Value Chains for Forests”; and Rui Miguel Rosmaninho, Director of the Department of Management of Public Forest Areas, of the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests, IP.